Dec 212015
 

This series presents, in no particular order, what I regard as the scriptural teachings most essential to Christian mysticism. It draws attention to key words and phrases, and poses some questions about them that I simply leave for interested readers to address as they see fit.  Part 1 was on the Great Commandments. You are welcome to respond in the comments section.

Teaching 2: The Farewell Prayer of Jesus

Christ_Taking_Leave_of_the_Apostles

My prayer is not for them [my chosen disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. (John 17:20-26)

Key Words & Phrases

“I pray also for those who will believe in me….”

Jesus’ farewell prayer begins by expressing his hopes for everyone who believes in him. In contemporary Christian life, we often take the word “belief” only its connotation of agreement, consent, or submission to a doctrine. But deeper than this intellectual position is the attitude of trust, and so Jesus is saying that his prayer is for those who trust him, who have enough confidence in his claim of oneness with God.

“…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”

The end of this sentence suggests that the belief, the trust and confidence, he has spoken of is not an end in itself, but that it is a step that opens us to the possibility of existing in oneness, to “be one,” experiencing and knowing it, “just as” he does.

“you are in me and I am in you,” “May they also be in us,” “I in them and you in me,”

Note the interchangeability of subject and object in those statements:  God in Jesus, Jesus in God, us in God and Jesus, Jesus in us, God in Jesus, and thereby God in us.  This interchangeability communicates oneness as well as can be done in dualistic terms.

“complete unity”

In John’s Gospel, the Greek for “complete” is teleioo, and like our English word it speaks of something finally accomplished, in a state of fullness, and perfected.  The Greek for “unity” is the same as that used for “one” in this passage. Thus “complete unity” speaks of being fully one.  In the state of complete oneness, there is no longer two or any other number of things, only the one.  The subject and object dichotomy becomes meaningless, and all these statements are, in effect, simply different ways of saying the One is one.

“I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

Here, at the very end of his prayer, Jesus says that all the ways in which he has made and will make God known to us are for the purpose of having us come to experience the same love (agape) that God has for Jesus, and thus he will be one with us.

Questions for Meditation

  1. How does your meditation from Part 1 on the oneness of God inform the way you think about the meaning of oneness or unity in Jesus’s prayer?
  2. In mystically loving God, what is the role of belief and how does it relate to the Great Commandments?
  3. How does belief in someone or something differ from knowing someone or something? How does believing in something differ from being in it?
  4. What does this prayer say to you about possible outcomes of following Jesus, ones that he greatly desires for us?
  5. How might your life change if you were to ever know oneness with God so completely, even for just a single second, that it no longer made sense to speak of you and God as separate from each other?
  6. What would be the implications of such oneness for your relationships with other humans beings, the world, and all of existence?
  7. What relationship is there between being loving and knowing oneness?

 

Christ be with you!

Maranatha

Agape

May 072014
 

St. Isaac of Stella wrote:

Love incited by something external
Is like a small lamp
Whose flame is fed with oil,
Or like a stream fed by rains,
Where flows stop when the rains cease.
But love whose object is God is like
A fountain gushing forth
From the earth.
Its flow never ceases,
For He Himself is the source of this love
And also its food,
Which never grows scarce.

It’s been several years ago now, but after meditation on those words, and a moment of contemplative stillness, I wrote the following poem:

Deep within the well of this heart,
sliding down in the silent darkness,
sinking into the caverns of spirit,
I found You, Beloved One,
the hidden waters,
a mighty rushing in the stillness.

There at Your edge,
where I might have plunged
and fulfilled the fantasy
of a supreme union,
I found instead
the fear of oblivion in You,
and upon this halting
I piled remorse and shame
for my self-judged unworthiness.

Still I dipped a begging hand
into Your ceaseless current,
washed the tear-stained dust
from this mask of sadness
and sipped a drop of Your cool purity.

Such sweet wine You are,
Beloved One,
for this single taste
bestowed an unimagined sobriety,
a joyous awakening to the memory
that this resistance to Your fullness
is among the greatest gifts from You.

In these depths,
all things left within me
that had seemed to interfere
with my dream of perfection
were revealed as channels
for a unique upwelling
of Your goodness.

You created me to be Your lover,
my Beloved.
By Your will we are two
who are nonetheless one.
Never let this be undone
so long as there are others in this world
who thirst for You.

There are many things we could draw out of these two poems, but today my focus is drawn from the very first line of St. Isaac’s work.  So long as we think of God as something or someone entirely separate from and outside of ourselves, external, I believe we are missing a vital point of St. Isaac’s mystical statement.  For those of us who have been  in traditional religious institutions, a great deal of our spiritual thoughts, sentiments, and practices have indeed been incited by something external.  Our attempts to love the Great Mystery we call God can often be almost entirely directed by doctrines and authorities urging us to relate to God as anything but present within our own souls and those of others.   So it is that many of us are led into the recurring misery of feeling that God is separate and distant from us, unresponsive to our prayers and devotions, and that we must therefore be far too corrupt to merit God’s thirst-quenching love.  Yet, it is possible to break free of this psychospiritual tyranny and rediscover the presence of God as Love within us.  But it would be an incomplete understanding of St. Isaac to think this means we should turn all of our attention within, giving our time and energy only to that inward experience.  To accept that the Kingdom of God is already within us begs the further realization that it is within everyone else and all of creation, just as Jesus taught.  In that realization, our love for things external to us, certainly including other people, is directly connected with cherishing and serving God, or Love itself.  Finally, my poem ends with a kind of Christian Bodhisattva vow, a commitment to not make the spiritual life about trying to escape from the world’s suffering, but rather to accept the fact of our presence in this world, and to answer the call to transform that presence for the good of all.

Agape

May 302012
 

This post isn’t about Adam from the book of Genesis, or even Jesus’ declaration of “I am,” although there are meaningful connections that could be made with both of those topics.  I am instead referring to the everyday use of first-person pronouns. The intentions here are to reflect on some aspects of the first person, to suggest mystical significances in doing so, and to explore some very practical implications for life in this world.   (Just in case a little refresher on grammar would be helpful, the singular first-person pronouns are I, me, my, mine, and myself, and the plural first-person pronouns are we, us, our, ours, ourselves.)

One of the first things about this topic that might come to mind for many of us is some idea about the illusoriness of the self.  Many mystical teachers and traditions suggest if not explicitly declare that self, or at least our understanding of self as a separate entity, is an illusion.  In this view, the words me and I refer only to abstract ideas of personhood arising and disappearing in the ever-changing field of Existence Itself. In other words, I have no essence unique to me, no independent existence of my own.  In Christianity, this view may be found in a number of scriptures, including Acts 17:28 and Galatians 2:20.  Furthermore, it is often asserted that the mistaken belief in the self as an objectively real and permanent entity is the primary or most significant obstacle to the greatest liberation and peace, the deepest wisdom and understanding.   It is considered such a tremendous obstacle because so much energy is required to defend and maintain its illusory concreteness amid the unceasing reality of change, and because it is the most central point of our attempted refusals to accept impermanence in all its forms.  It is the common thread running through all the other illusions we strive to weave and maintain.

What might be done with these observations?  To some minds, the illusion of self is considered nothing but a barrier that must be overcome, or a distraction to be ignored.   One person I know has developed a disciplined practice of never using the first-person singular; he always refers to himself in the third person, just as he would any other person.  Among other people, the illusion of self is seen as a necessary part of this ongoing work of art we call Creation, a dynamic which permits the emergence of an unlimited diversity of individual perspectives and relatively independent co-creators to assist in unfolding the possibilities of this ever-changing field of Existence Itself.  In almost any case, speaking in the first-person can be regarded as an opportunity to remember the illusion of self, and thus include that awareness in mindfulness of the present moment.  One positive effect of such awareness is its capacity to facilitate a greater acceptance of change and one’s involvement in it.

But what might this line of thought suggest in the more specific context of Christian mysticism?  I want to begin addressing that question from the centrality of love.

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.  1 John 4:16

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. Matthew 25:37-40

These two verses, among many others, reveal the interconnectedness of all humans with each other and with God, who is Love itself.  They highlight that we most realize this oneness in and through love, and not only through thoughts and feelings of love, but also through action.

To return to the theme of this post, let’s recall that speech is an important form of action.  Many of us were raised with an old saw that says, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”  While we can sincerely appreciate the value of this as a lesson about not overreacting to words, we also cannot deny the immense power that words do indeed have in this world.   The speaking and writing of words are actions for transmitting thoughts and evoking feelings among other souls.  Words are therefore among the most direct and intimate of ways that we touch the lives of others. They can lead to war, facilitate peace, communicate admiration and affection, encapsulate agreements, define partnerships, inflame passions, push people to the edge of suicide or bring them back from it, soothe hurting hearts, cool hot heads, and express awe and praise.  When we are honest with ourselves about the power of words, we know their use carries great responsibility.

But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned. Matthew 12:36-37

The significance of words and the power of language are so profound that we even call Christ “the Word.”

In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.  John 1:1

We should not take words too lightly, but instead recognize that they are a form of action we are called to execute with love.   This call has direct relevance to our use of the first person, not only in reminding ourselves that the first-person singular doesn’t refer to some entity apart from God and our fellow human beings, but also in acknowledging that all forms of the first-person plural accentuate our unity without denying our diversity.  We are humanity.  We are God’s children in God’s own womb.  A very meaningful aspect of this realization is that it makes the objectification of the second and third person – you, your, yours, yourself, they, their, theirs, themselves – as impossible as it does for the first person.  In effect, it tends to make us more wary of any movement into language that plays into the dichotomizing illusions of me versus you or us versus them.  There is no one who does not belong.

In this light, it is important for us to speak in the first-person plural as often as possible, evoking awareness of diversity-in-unity, and especially when we are being critical.  To speak this way does not require a denial of difference or an evasion of accountability among particular individuals or groups.  It does, however, challenge me to see within myself the potential for anything that I might identify as sinful, sick, or problematic in another person or group.    This shift of perspective is automatically a step into empathy and compassion, and perhaps even into forgiveness and healing (making whole again).   Instead of speaking of “them,” and their shortcomings, I can speak of mine as common examples.  Instead of speaking of a solution that I have for them, we can speak together of how we would like things to be different and what we can all do to help things change.

Dear friends, may we allow the mystical awareness of diversity-in-unity to transform our minds and renew us such that we speak in more loving ways.  May we increasingly overcome the temptation to speak in ways that foster  illusions that encourage Christians of one sort to be at war with Christians of another sort.   Even further, may we become ever more mindful and cherishing of the beautiful diversity-in-unity of all humanity and, in doing so, more fully and clearly express the loving will of God.

Jul 252011
 

Practice

Combining-Meditation-And-PrayerIn Part 2 we reflected on the non-dual transcendence of the one Love that is God, and the possibility that everything is therefore in some way an experience or expression of Love.  But now we turn to ponder the practical significance of these views, as we should do with all philosophical and spiritual insights and propositions, no matter how intuitively, intellectually, or emotionally certain we may be of their truth.

What difference might it make in our lives to live with faith, if not knowledge, that everything is Love?  If we carefully consider this question, we may become aware of how muddy and murky our perceptions and conceptions of Love have been, how much we have habitually judged things as either being loving or not, or perhaps how we have semi-consciously ranked things on some vague scale of more or less loving. So, if nothing else, serious regard for Love as ever-present in, even essential to, the existence of all things and acts may help us be more mindful and immediately present in our experiences and expressions of love.  This mindfulness can repeatedly confront us with our own assumptions, preferences, and expectations of Love, our own biases and prejudices about Love and its many forms. Thus, when we find ourselves reacting to an experience as though it is somehow opposed to Love, this practice begs us to look beyond the surface and deeply into the desires, motives, intentions, hopes, and fears that have shaped our judgments of it, and perhaps those that have played more external roles in the experience.  Most of us know what it’s like to see the mask of hostility on the face of a loved one, initially respond to it with our own defensive hostility, and then later discover the love that was there, even if it was only the other person’s self-love fearfully hiding behind that mask.  Love never left; we just failed to recognize it in our knee-jerk reactions of self-protection, of our own self-love. To some of us it may even be apparent that all hostility and violence in the world is the result of creatures, all acting in their own self-love, competing with each other for survival, comfort, and propagation of their species. In any case, one effect of such a practice is that it can aid us in living with greater openness to understanding others and ourselves, and thus into greater compassion and action for the wellbeing of each and all.

You probably noticed that the last statement strongly implies that a love characterized by understanding, compassion and serving mutual wellbeing is more desirable than one characterized by unchecked selfishness, defensiveness and hostility. This view seems to be something that most of humanity has always agreed with.  Still it is clear that we humans experience and express love in different ways, and that each of us tends to consider some expressions of Love more desirable than others.  We often use words like “true” or “pure” to speak of the most desirable or admirable forms of Love.  But if everything is a manifestation of the One Love, are such distinctions just illusions we should try to banish from our minds?  If all is God, then how can we justify preferring one thing over another, let alone one form of Love over another?  Wouldn’t whatever we find ugly and unhealthy be just as pleasing and acceptable to God as anything else, and, if it is, shouldn’t it be so to us as well?

To begin responding to these questions, let’s recall that non-duality does not exclude duality, but transcends and subsumes it.  Thus a non-dual spirituality does not necessarily put one in the position of denying any meaning or value in dualistic experiences and expressions of Love.  So we should not be surprised to find the mystics of every religion and tradition have asserted the desirability and importance of various virtues to the most whole human expressions of Love.  Where, then, does a Christian look for a guide to living a love that most fully and completely reflects the transcendence of Love in our ordinary dualistic experience?

Let’s consider what we know or believe about how God, or Love, has expressed Itself through this dualistic creation.  First, there is the act of creation as presented in Genesis 1 & 2.   Love somehow makes it possible for duality to manifest and reproduce itself within Love’s unity.  Acting within that duality to create humanity, our tradition asserts that Love makes us in Love’s image, breathes life into us with Love’s own Spirit, and thereby endows us with intelligence and free will, so that we might choose what to do in this creation.  So we can see that Love is creative and giving of itself and wills for its offspring to be of the same nature.

As Christians, we consider Love’s greatest gift to humanity to be the life of Jesus Christ, whom we take to be our chief exemplar of what it means to live the fullness of Love as much as humanly possible.  In one of Jesus’ most significant moments of preaching, the Sermon on the Mount, he extolled a number of virtues, such as those in the Beatitudes, and provided his own version of the law of Love for our dualistic world:

You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy.  But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!  In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.  If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.  If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.  But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Jesus speaks very clearly in this moment about how human love can come closest to Divine Love.  There is also clarity on another occasion when, speaking for God, for Love Itself, he says:

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. … whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus also teaches that there is no greater love than laying one’s life down for others, which he then did in reflection of Love’s grace continually giving Itself to us.  Love apparently has no limitations with being Self-sacrificing, perhaps because in Its transcendence Love knows that ultimately there is nothing lost; Love knows Itself in all things.

Love, as taught and practiced by Jesus, is what all Christians, whether or not we consider ourselves mystics, are called to do. Nowhere in scripture is the ideal of Christian love more poetically extolled than in 1 Corinthians 13. In the Greek text of this chapter, in the law of Love given in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Great Commandments given by Jesus, the term used for love is agape, or intentional, careful, gracious, self-sacrificing love that is understood to transcend all knowledge, works, faith, and hope.  Agape is also used in 1st John to say God is Love.  Jesus and the New Testament authors obviously considered agape to be the form of Love in ordinary human experience that comes closest to the fullness of Love Itself.  It may thus be considered the form of love in which all others – such as philia, eros, sturge, and xenia – are most beautifully experienced and expressed.

Finally, let’s reflect on how all of this might be more meaningful specifically in the context of mysticism.  Many of us tend to think of mysticism as being a more or less solitary practice in which one turns inward to more fully commune with God.  This is certainly a profound way to love God, yet if God is Love Itself then every experience and expression of love is, to some degree, communion with God.  To mindfully practice love in our everyday lives is therefore a mystical practice with just as much significance as, if not more than, our solitary practices.  Such a practice makes our mysticism a more complete response to the call of Christ to love God with all we are and others as ourselves, and thus toward a more complete expression of Love’s non-dual transcendence.  To give and receive Love is mystical experience, if we would only realize it.

Agape!

Maranatha!

Jul 222011
 

Love

In Christian mysticism, we acknowledge that God is ultimately a mystery while affirming it is also possible to know many things about God.  In Part 1, for example, it was suggested BlackMadonna_8that it is possible to know God is non-dual, and that God is transcendent in a way that includes immanence rather than opposes it.  Within that scope, our tradition speaks of many attributes of God that we can know, such as creativity, wisdom, understanding, mercy, justice, beauty, and so on.  But there is one word that stands above all others as the supreme attribute through which we can most fully know God, the one that encompasses all others, and that word is “love.”  Our scriptures even boldly declare that God is love.  If we are to take such scriptures literally (in this case I do), and if God is non-dually transcendent, then love must also be non-dually transcendent.  But this is a very intellectual and abstract way of coming to a position on the nature of love, and if there is truth to it then we should find it reflected in our actual lives.

The ways we experience and express love span the entire range of the human psyche and its functions: intuition, thought, emotion, sensation, and action. Love has both conscious and unconscious dimensions, and it is found both “above” in the most sublime realms of illumination and transformation and “below” in the darkest depths of instinct and inertia. Love as an agent of human reproduction encompasses the union of two, their separation, and the birth of a third.  Love can be either passive or active, and it is expressed by the gentle hand of tender caresses as well as the strict hand of punitive discipline.  Love is known in the hottest throes of passionate lovemaking and the coolest musings of philosophy (literally the “love of wisdom”).  The love of self at the expense of loving others, no matter how selfish, shortsighted, and confused it might be, is still a form of love. When we explore the ubiquity of love deeply, we can find its spark lurking within even the most unconscionable desire. Even hate, fear, and apathy, each of which might sometimes appear to be the opposite of love, are still conditions we can experience within the context of a love that isn’t merely limited to feelings of affection, confidence, and care. It is also poignant to me that we actually speak of forms of love, such that our language itself reveals at least a vague apprehension of a single love that transcends the different ways we experience, express, and conceptualize love.  Even the Greeks, who were the source of much of our language about love, didn’t always hold clear and consistent distinctions among the various forms of love they discerned, including agape, eros, philia, sturge and xenia. Plato’s Symposium is a fascinating discussion just of eros, and the views of the participants span a very broad range of experience, expression and meaning.  (It’s also interesting to me that “love” is one of those English words that is both a noun and a verb. An entire sentence can be formed using no other word but “love”, such as “Love love, love.”  This statement means “I urge you to love love itself, my beloved.” Perhaps this is another word game, but I digress.)

In all of these ways we find evidence that love is not bound to dualistic oppositions though it is known in and through them.  Furthermore, the unconscious dimensions of love contribute to our inability to completely grasp the meaning of love.   Yes, we can know many things about love, and we can clearly see that it not only crosses all boundaries of human experience, but we also cannot deny that the whole truth of love is mysterious.  So it is that we can arrive at an understanding of love’s transcendence apart from any metaphysical speculations or extraordinary spiritual experiences.

If we take seriously the equation that God is love, the mystical assertion of the non-duality of God, and the conclusion that ordinary human experience itself reveals the non-dual transcendence of love, then we must consider the possibility that all human experiences of love, from the most spiritual to the most mundane, participate to some degree in a transcendent love that is divine, that is God (and is therefore worthy of being written as “Love” with a capital L).  Indeed, this way of thinking has led many people to conclude that everything is an experience or expression of Love.

But here is the rub:  To describe everything as an experience or expression of Love verges on a statement with as little everyday usefulness to many people as saying everything is an experience or expression of energy.  It might be true, but what difference does it make?   Does it imply that all experiences and expressions of Love are equal and worthy of no distinction in our lives?   These questions lead us directly into the practical dimensions of loving in this world, which we’ll address in Part 3.

 

Jul 202011
 

After the last series I muttered to myself about never wanting to do another series again.  Hah!   Well, here I am doing it again because, when I stopped to look at how much I had written, I found I had too much on this topic for a single post.  I sure can be a long-winded fool!  So right now it looks like this will be a three-part series, beginning with an examination of how we might understand “transcendence” in a non-dualist way, followed by explanation of what I mean by “transcendent love” in that context, and ending with a consideration for how those ideas might shape one’s spiritual practice.

Transcendence

What do we mean by “transcendent“?  In common use, and especially in spiritual circles, it usually means a state of elevation above other things.  We mystical types often speak ofdali-salvador-the-rose-8300094 transcendence as a blissful experience or state of consciousness closer to God and further, if not completely, removed from the pains of mundane existence. In short, we make transcendence something otherworldly. This expectation fits neatly into the dualistic thinking of heaven vs. earth, unity vs. separation, love vs. hate, and so on.  In that dualistic thinking we find it easy to define transcendence as otherworldly because we want to escape the part of existence we have judged to be lacking, wrong, corrupted, diseased, bad, or evil.  In short, we have a desire for a “there” we can get to in order to be away from the “here” we find unacceptable, and our notions about transcendence seem to offer us the way out.

2359295569_17089d2346_o

Buddha in the Earth Witness Posture

Let’s consider, however, that this might say more about the dynamics of our thoughts and feelings than it does about the whole truth of transcendence. Mystics of many traditions agree that it is possible to know transcendence here and now, even while living and moving in this world. They claim that the non-dual One is not only beyond our common world of seeming separation, but It interpenetrates and is present here and now in a way that defies the either/or logic we are trained to idolize. Christianity is no exception, and here are some of its messages from non-dual perspectives: God is the One in which we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28); the Kingdom of Heaven is within you (Luke 17:21), and it is also spread out over the face of the entire earth (Thomas 113); Jesus speaks of lifting a rock or splitting wood and finding him there (Thomas 77). From such a perspective it is clear that the One we call God, and thus the experience/state of being closer to God, is not limited to either/or duality; it is both beyond the world as we commonly know it and present within it.  One of my favorite analogies for such an experience/state is lucid dreaming, which means being aware that you are dreaming while you are still in the dream.  Lucid dreaming transcends the usual either/or opposition we make; it is both dreaming and wakefulness, and it is suggested this has significant relevance to mystical transcendence.

At this point, it might be objected that the non-duality of God is traditionally spoken of as both transcendent and immanent.  I appreciate this statement and have often used it.  Yet in the present context it can be seen that this statement is only another way of tackling the non-duality of God through our dualistic language and logic, and it is a way that continues to imply transcendence is apart from the here-and-now as we commonly know it.  To me, that use of the word “transcendence” fails to open to its larger meaning of climbing across boundaries, of being without limitation, and so God’s transcendence would remain limited by being conceptually opposed to immanence; a transcendence that is not also immanent isn’t fully transcendent after all.    I admit it’s a bit of a word game, but I’ve found it to be a helpful one, not unlike a Zen koan.

For Part 2: How can we understand love as transcendent in this non-dualist way?

 

Feb 062011
 

jesus-sweating-blood-in-gethsemaneThis is a perennial topic in spirituality, and Christian devotion is certainly no exception. We have our ascetics who have glorified the value of suffering to the point of practicing the most extreme forms of mortification.  We’ve had clergy and elders who have directed the faithful to always quietly submit to whatever abuses, cruelties or injustices they may have suffered as trials of faith.  I’ve heard of Inquisitors who went into raptures of ecstasy at hearing people cry out to God as they burned at the stake.  Mother Teresa allegedly did not allow patients in her care to receive pain medication because she believed it was so important for people to suffer with Christ.

As mystics we seek to know union with God, and to live in accord with our faith in and knowledge of that union. How does suffering, our own and that of others, fit into this context?

The Roots of Suffering

Let’s avoid the temptation to slip into distraction with ontological tail-chasing about why suffering exists at all.  My preference is to begin by simply accepting the existential reality, and from that place begin considering what meaning it has for me.  And, before going further, it may be helpful to note that there are two general classes of suffering:  The first is the basic experience of physical and emotional pain immediately resulting from loss, injury or disease,  and the second is the additional suffering we create for ourselves with our mental responses to the fact or possibility of such things.  While this post has relevance to the first class of suffering, it is actually the second class that is of primary concern.  That sort of suffering is something we have more opportunity to prevent or transform, and not only for our own benefit but also because it so often spills over into the lives of others.

It first occurs to me that suffering reveals our illusions, or at least our attachments to them.  It is actually our resistance to accepting illusions for what they are that causes so much of our distress and dis-ease in life.  Sometimes this happens when we get what we thought we wanted, only to find the reality is significantly different from our dreams.  Sometimes it happens because of the experience of impermanence and our vain struggles to preserve what was.

“Attachment” and “impermanence” seem to be key words here.  It’s simple enough to see how our desires to keep and hold what pleases us must always be thwarted by the reality of impermanence here in this world.  A deeper truth of this is that we tend to define ourselves through our attachments, though we might not realize it, either on the whole or with specifics.   But anyone who has experienced a significant loss – like the death of a loved one, the breakup of an intimate relationship, the loss of a career, an ability, a reputation, a home, or even membership in some group – to some degree knows that anxious sense of having lost something of the self.  Sometimes in these situations we even ask ourselves, “Who am I now?”

So we can see how in the depths of such suffering one often, if not always, perceives a blow to one’s own self-concept, and there is little to nothing we want to protect and preserve more than the self-concept; it is simply the survival instinct, if nothing else.  The truth, however, is that the personal self is temporary.  It is always changing and, despite a more or less constant sense of a “me”, that “me” is obviously never precisely what it was a little while ago.  It is memories of “me” that largely form the collage each of us habitually relies upon for a self-concept, the patchwork emblem we have of the present “me”.  So at best the self-concept is a fluid theory or working hypothesis of who and what we have been and are becoming in this world.  At worst it is an illusion we mistake for a concrete actuality, the psychological equivalent of an idolized statue standing on fragile clay feet, destined to eventually be broken.

The Transformation of Suffering

I think this issue is close to the very core of the mystical impulse.  On the one hand suffering urges us to desire the eternal, to identify with it no matter how paradoxical that may seem.  On the other hand we are drawn to the fleeting unique beauty of impermanent things.  Is there an unresolvable opposition here that begs us to abandon one for the other?  There are many ways we can respond to this juxtaposition, but it seems the general tone of Christian mysticism is to focus on Love.  For us, the value of suffering can begin to be found in its revelation of our illusory attachments and reminding us of our obsession with protecting and preserving the self-concept.  We are thus provided the opportunity to transform temporal suffering from something to be fled at all costs into a catalyst for more fully knowing eternal Love.

Among other ways, people have tried to define Love as the very principle of union itself, the reintegrating power that resolves oppositions and dissolves separation into oneness.  However, when two or more join in love, another one often arises from them.  So it is with all forms of Love as we know it, and so it is that the principle of union is never the last word on the meaning of Love.  Love transcends the duality of separation, union, and the birth of the new.  It is in Love that we know and rejoice in both the eternal, transcendent mystery of non-duality and the temporal ever-becoming, ever-passing wonder of the relative world.

So, for Christian mystics, what are the implications about the suffering of others?  First and foremost it is a reminder of our shared humanity, and that awareness combined with the focus on Love naturally delivers us to compassion, kindness and service.  Yet, as the human heart and mind strive to express something of Love, it is often said that one can only love another to the extent that he or she loves self.  It’s easy to get the idea that one must place self-love first and foremost on some sort of love agenda, as if we would otherwise have less Love to offer others. On the other hand, much has also been said about forgetting self in the love of others, as though time spent in loving self always robs others of Love. But these distinctions reveal our fear that there is some absolute limit to our ability to express Love, if not a limitation in Love itself; it is an assumed lacking that reduces infinite Love to a temporal commodity rather than an eternal good.  Notions such as these are veils on Love’s transcendence of all dualities, for genuine love of self and genuine love of others each have the effect of magnifying the other, despite the suffering that may be intertwined with them.  Like mirrors facing one another, notions of giver and receiver evaporate into the infinite depths of their shared reflection. And so it is that in expressing compassion and kindness in response to the suffering of others, we become a unique temporal flowering of the transcendence of eternal Love; we actually participate in the mystery of the Incarnation, and thus, in the language of our tradition, shine as the light of Christ in this world.

 

Jan 272011
 

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58)

In light of the Logos-centered Christology reviewed in Part 1, we can revisit John 14 and hear Jesus speaking to his disciples both personally and spiritually, his voice moving back and forth between the unique humanity of their loving teacher and friend and the divine universality of the Logos, and sometimes richly speaking with double-meaning:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these….

“If you love me, keep my commands. … Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

“You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. …”

For now I’ll leave it for you, if you wish, to work out how these various statements might fit into the view we are considering.  My concerns at this point are the keynotes in Jesus’ call to know the Logos as the Way of realizing union with God.

If Jesus is telling his disciples that knowing the Logos is the Way, then he is telling them that the Way is within themselves just as it is in him.  This is not at all surprising when we recall that he has also said the Kingdom of God is within.  If we, like Phillip, want to see the Father, Jesus is telling us we must look within ourselves, behind the mask of human personality and deep into the root of our own consciousness and being, into our own “I am-ness”, and thus come to know the Logos within ourselves.  His instruction is nothing less than a prescription for mystical practice, but a contemplative opening inward isn’t all there is to it.  Jesus is quite clear that an indispensable part of the Way is following the commands of the Logos, Its compassionate inspiration, to do loving works in the world.  Actually, this must be so because to really know the Logos that was speaking through Jesus, and that also lives and speaks in you, is to know It is present in everyone.

Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. (Colossians 3:11)

So it is that our love for others, as manifested in the works we do for others, is evidence of how much we know and love the Logos, and thus God.  The internal and the external are repaired, reintegrated, reunited by the loving grace of Logos. It’s love for us and our love for It is one and the same love flowing out and back upon Itself, as it is written in 1 John 4:7-21 (emphasis added):

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.  And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.  If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.  This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.  And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

God is love, and God’s first-born, the Logos, the rational animating principle, is love.  One does not truly know love without being loving, thus to love is to know the Logos and so realize union with God.  The practice of love is mystical practice; to be loving is the Way, the Truth and the Life, in silent contemplation of the One and caring for others and ourselves.  This union of both passive devotion and active participation is the bhakti yoga of Jesus Christ, as encapsulated in his assertion of the Great Commandments.  The degree to which we have such faith in and experience with Divine Love as the meaning of our unique yet interconnected lives is the degree to which we are anointed, “christed”, and have died to the illusion of separation from God and others.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:3-4)

Of course, this way of understanding Jesus and his message is not the only way, and there are many Christians who would not agree with it.  Let it be so.  After all, love is more than the effort to “fathom all mysteries and all knowledge”.  So, to reiterate, the purpose of these reflections has not been to attack other views, but rather to offer another possibility to those who are seeking, and to greet those who are also on this way.

Maranatha!

Jan 252011
 

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

For most Christians this quote is typically supposed, with others like John 3:16, to clarify beyond any doubt that Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, was the one and only incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, and from that point forward is the only guide we should trust to lead us to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Such quotes have been regarded as divine declarations that Christianity is the one and only religion acceptable to God, which has in turn been wrongly considered as justification for every form of disregard, condescension, discrimination, and cruelty against non-Christians.

But is that the only way we can understand this statement? Are there other ways of understanding Jesus’ words that make theological sense and also harmonize more completely with the message that God’s love is for all (Acts 10:34-36, Romans 2:11)?

Yes, there are such ways to understand this and other passages dealing with the divinity of Jesus, and they can make a profound difference in how we live our faith and relate to other human beings.  I am about to dive into one of those views and I caution the reader that it may be challenging to your beliefs.  Please understand it is not my intention to dissuade anyone from the common view, but instead to present an option for those who are interested, and to reach out to others who see things in a similar way.

The view presently offered begins by noting that the original Greek of the first chapter of the Gospel of John identifies Jesus as an incarnation of the Logos, which is usually translated into English New Testaments as “Word”.  Logos literally means “word”, “speech”, or “reason”, but long before the time of Jesus it had become a philosophical term, especially among the Platonists and Stoics, referring to the rational spiritual principle emanated directly from the One to animate material existence.  In this role, the Logos serves as God’s “only begotten son”, the cosmic architect and intermediary between heaven and earth.

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  (John 1:1-3)

The Gospel of John’s view is remarkably similar to Philo the Jew of Alexandria’s identification of the Logos as the “Angel of the Lord”, or God’s messenger as mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.  Although Philo’s work was largely unacceptable to Jews of the times, early Christian theologians found much to admire in it.  Philo’s life (approx. 20 BCE to 50 CE) closely predated the Pauline Epistles (approx. 50-60 CE) and the Gospel of John (approx. 85-90 CE), and the ideas and language in these texts is at times so strikingly similar to Philo’s that some scholars have suspected more than a coincidental relationship, perhaps much more.  In any case, it remains that early Christians equated certain Jewish ideas about a messiah with Greek ideas of the Logos, and saw them embodied in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they therefore honored with the Greek title equivalent to Messiah, “Xristos”, meaning “the anointed one”.   A highly significant point in making this connection is that the Logos was considered inherently present in all creatures, which is also to say that Christ is present in all people, whether they realize it or not.

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:4-5)

So Christ is the Logos, the rational animating principle of Spirit that is the bridge between heaven and earth, present in every human being, even those who lived before Jesus, those who have never heard his name, and those who never consider him their savior.  The simple fact that someone exists is proof of the Logos present and active within that person.  The uniqueness of Jesus is therefore not in being an incarnation of the Logos, but in being the most celebrated exemplar of one who has fully awakened to himself as an incarnation of the Logos.

From this perspective, when Jesus speaks about being the only way to the Father, he is not speaking of himself as a historical figure with whom one must be acquainted in order to be with God; he is instead speaking on behalf of the Logos that can be recognized and embraced as God’s presence in each of us, its precious unique manifestations.  The Logos is the life in our own bodies, the spiritual Breath breathed into us by God that makes us one with God, the Inner Light of mind that makes it possible to realize the depth and fullness of “I am”.

Therefore Jesus said to them, When ye have araised man’s Son, then ye shall know, that I am, and of myself I do nothing; but as my Father taught me, I speak these things.  (This is the Wycliffe translation of John 8:28, which remains faithful to the original Greek text and does not add “Him,” “He” or anything else after “I am.”)

In Part 2 we’ll look more closely into Jesus’ message about knowing the Logos as the Way to realize union with God.

Nov 292010
 

Here are two dialogues between a Christian mystic and Buddhists.  They are not shared as an attempt to define either religion or to hold one up as superior to the other.  What is important to me is the fraternal meeting of minds, the exposure of mystical and non-dualist perspectives in Christianity, and the  achievement of greater understanding between people of significantly different traditions.

Dialogue #1: The Ultimate Personal Relationship

They were discussing the nature of the Ultimate, beginning at what seemed to be a classic impasse:  The Christian spoke of the Ultimate as a personal God, and the a-theistic Buddhist spoke of the Ultimate as the impersonal principle of Being that gives rise to all things, yet is not contained by all things.

In their discussion, the Christian typically asserted that God is all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving.  The Buddhist countered that if this is so, then God would be impossible for a human being to understand, that God must also be all-mysterious.  The Christian agreed, yet held that while God could not be understood, God could still be experienced as the great mystery of life itself.  The Buddhist smiled, apparently thinking that he now had the upper hand in the debate.  He asked the Christian how, if God is all-mysterious, one could rightly refer to God as “personal.”

The Christian had two responses:  First, he clarified that when many mystical theologians speak of God as a person, or a trinity of three persons, they are speaking in metaphors that only address ways God can be experienced by human beings.  Second, he said that since we are persons, it only makes sense that one of the most powerful and meaningful ways of experiencing God is as a person too.  So, while speaking of God as a person may be understood to be a metaphor, speaking of one’s experience with God as a personal relationship is entirely fitting.

Well, the Buddhist furrowed his brow for a moment, looking like a chess player trying to salvage his gambit from an unexpected move.  Suddenly he looked up with an idea.  He said that if experiencing God as a person is only a way of experiencing the Ultimate, then wouldn’t a purer, simpler way to experience the Ultimate be as the impersonal principle of Being?

The Christian asked if the Buddhist was one who thinks of the Ultimate as beyond all oppositions and thus non-dual.  The Buddhist said that he did.  Then the Christian said that if we are going to regard the Ultimate as non-dual, it is just as inaccurate to speak of It as impersonal as to speak of It as personal.  He said that personal and impersonal fall into the categories of either/or, neither/nor as well as both/and when speaking of the Ultimate, or God, and that what makes the difference is simply the kinds of experience one is open to.

The Buddhist was nodding with a blank face for moment, and then he laughed.   He said that now he could finally understand Christianity, but he wondered how many Christians do.  The Christian asked how many Buddhists really understand Buddhism, and they both laughed together.

Dialogue #2: If You Meet the Dharmakaya on the Via Negativa….

Zen Buddhist (ZB): “I would be very grateful if you could explain your interest in Zen.”

Christian Mystic (CM): “Zen is of interest because of its acceptance of this moment, right here, right now, just as it is.  The interconnected complexity of everything is permeated by this simplicity.  This explanation isn’t adequate.”

ZB: “Very interesting.  The shift of consciousness, from that of the periphery, to that of the ‘central’ position of the Mind, is, as I understand it, the essential thrust of the Ch’an-Zen teaching – a Buddhism, without the requirement for ‘Buddhism’, so-to-speak.

“In a sense, the Buddha’s own teaching, even within the Pali Canon, advocates the ‘letting go’ of even the method that gets one to the destination – the Dhammapada uses the allusion of a ‘raft’, and another shore being reached, etc.  One question that intrigues me is this; is it possible to reconcile the teaching of ’emptiness’ (sunyata), with that of the existence of a theistic entity creating and controlling all things?”

CM: “Yes, Zen [and Christian mysticism, for that matter] may be thought of as a tool.  About letting go of the raft, the limitation of this metaphor is the notion of a destination, which is not to say that such a notion is not useful.

“The teaching of sunyata can be likened to the Via Negativa of Western mysticism, in which it is acknowledged that the concept of God as a supremely active and intentional intelligence is only one way to think about and relate to God.  In the Via Negativa we continually strip our minds of such concepts to abide in the utter mystery of God, knowing that such thoughts are only limited creations of the mind or, if you will, fingers pointing at God.  In effect, we acknowledge the emptiness of such notions.  One effect of this practice can be to return back to simple awareness of this passing moment.

“So it is that, among many Western mystics, words about God have much in common with the Buddhist concept of Dharmakaya, which suggests a non-duality that is at once empty and full, no-thing and every-thing, impersonal and personal, unintentional and intentional, etc.  [In essence, “God” is the word we use for the Great Mysterious Truth of reality.]  For one in such a position, relating to God as a theistic entity can become a kind of artistic experience and expression of life.  [It is a way to express our love of the Great Mystery.]”

ZB: “Interesting, and well thought out.

“I am reminded of Matthew Fox, and his Original Blessing book, which deals with concepts such as ‘via negativa’, (as juxtaposed with ‘via positiva‘).  In that sense, a binary system that reconciles into an experiential ‘whole-ness’, realised within the spiritual being.  Allusions to similar systems, such as ‘Heaven’ and ‘Earth’, ‘yin’ and ‘yang’, are obvious.

“Of course, a ‘reconciliation’ does imply some kind of ‘third’ other, that actually realises the ‘reconciliation’.  The Dharmakaya (body of truth) is one candidate, and this is often presented in the Mahayana as part of a triad – (usually in conjunction with the nirmanakaya and the sambhogakaya).  Whether it could equally be said to be representative of a theistic entity, is problematic.  As none of the bodies of the Buddha originate ‘outside’ of the Mind.

“And this, (I sense), is where the breakdown of language raises its head!  God can not possibly be ‘God’, if God is in any way ‘real’.  As ‘God’ is a construct of the human Mind.  What lies beyond the construct, would in theory, also lie beyond the dualistic schemes that attempt to organise and explain nature in one, convenient philosophical presentation.

“The practice of Zen would eventually require the ‘giving-up’ of notions of ‘God’, and ‘Zen’, as well as any idea of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’.  As you say, a ‘timeless’, and ever ‘present’ moment of perfect being – free from discursive thinking and emotional over-lay.”

CM: “Peace.”

ZB: “Peace to you also.”